


Color My World

by captainamergirl



Category: One Life to Live, The Young and the Restless
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 11:53:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11713872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainamergirl/pseuds/captainamergirl
Summary: She was the girl who put the color in his world.





	Color My World

To look at them, you wouldn't have believed they had anything in common. He was an artist who practiced his craft diligently but not obsessively and she was a high-powered attorney who used to live for her work alone. They had met one night when she came into his mother's diner. He recognized her face from the news. She was prosecuting the big murder trial the whole northeast was buzzing about. He had been about to tell her they were closed but when she looked up at him and he saw the exhaustion and self-doubt in her dark brown eyes he couldn't bring himself to throw her out. He put on a fresh pot of coffee instead and she sat bundled up in her jacket sipping it as she waited for the huevos rancheros he was preparing for her. He brought her the plate piled high with food and to his surprise, she asked him to join her. He looked at her strangely and she said, "Well I can't eat all of this myself and I don't want it to go to waste."  
  
So had had joined her at the table and they ate and talked. She confided in him that she had driven past the diner every day on her way to the courtroom and every morning she thought how long it had been since she had a decent meal that didn't come with a wrapper and an offer of "you want fries with that?". And finally that night she had just decided to drop in because she was tired of the newshounds following her everywhere and she was hungry and she was exhausted and she just needed time to clear her head in peace. "When I go home, I just pace all night while I study my notes for the next day's proceedings." He had told her he couldn't imagine a life like that - where she only worked and didn't sleep because she was too busy trying to beat the opposition in the courtroom every day. "You should get some sleep," he had said and she'd laughed. Did she look that bad? "No, just frazzled - burned out. When I look at people sometimes I see them in color like the portraits I paint and you're all black and white except for a little dot of crimson that tells me there's more to you than your job and legal briefs." She'd smiled and she could pinpoint that moment as the one that made her realize he was going to end up being very important in her life.  
  
And he was. He invited her to come for dinner as often as she liked and they'd eat together and talk about their days and she'd ask him about his paintings and ask him teasingly if she was still black and white with a hint of crimson. He said she was becoming more colorful to him as they get to know each other better. She was crisp but she had a surprising sense of humor that popped up from time to time. He realized he was in love with her the day they kissed and his vision exploded in colors like fireworks all over the place. She was coming to mean more to him than anyone had in a very long time.  
  
The kiss had been brought on accidentally. She tripped on her impossibly high heels climbing out of the booth. He'd reached out to catch her and in that moment their eyes just zeroed in on the other. He felt like he could see her soul then and he had to taste her. And they'd kissed. And it was explosive and amazing and they would have probably made love right there in his mom's diner if his phone hadn't jangled to life in his pocket.  
  
It was his brother Antonio and Cristian asked in frustration, "what's going on, Tonio? Why are you calling so late?" When he heard his brother's response the color left the room - his world - for a good long time. Carlotta had been visiting Antonio in California and had unexpectedly had a heart attack. She was in a bad way.  
  
He had closed his phone, looked at Heather, and sighed. She knew something was wrong and he told her he was taking the first flight out to San Diego that he could catch because his Mami was apparently at death's door. Heather at looked at him, really looked at him, and said, "I know this is presumptuous of me but ... would you like me to come with you?" He asked about the trial. "It's Friday night. Court's adjourned till Tuesday cause of the holiday so ... If you would like me to come with you..." He just nodded and pulled her into his arms and held her tightly.  
  
They flew to California the very next morning on the red eye. Cristian got to say goodbye to his Mami before she passed away during an operation that was supposed to save her life. He was devastated and Heather respectfully kept her distance until he was ready to talk. He said his Mami had been his world for so long; he'd never really had a father. She said she hadn't either, not till she was already an adult. He said he was sad. She understood and just held his hand for the longest time before they left the hospital.  
  
That night she held him while he cried silently. He felt like a child doing so but she didn't judge him and the color starting easing back into his vision. Just browns at first and then by the end of the weekend, a little gray and white peppered his eyesight. They buried Carlotta together with a few friends and Antonio in attendance. Then they returned to Llanview.  
  
Heather's trial picked up again and as he had known she would, she won her case. They celebrated her week of freedom before the sentencing portion of the trail picked up by drinking champagne until she was seeing stars. They made love in the back of his car because they couldn't wait to get all the way across town. Both experienced brilliant, sparkly colored fireworks this time.  
  
She got a job offer to go to Japan soon after. She deliberated only briefly before turning it down. He had encouraged her not to let him hold her back but she said everything she wanted was right there in Llanview, Pennsylvania.  
  
He eventually proposed and all he could see was white lines and thick cream in his vision as she said yes. The day they married, he was happier than he ever had been and she was too.  
  
A year later, they welcomed a son into the world they named Carlos Pablo, after his mom and her dad. When Cristian put the baby in his wife's arms for the first time, there were so many brilliant colors all over the place he had to shut his eyes for a moment before he became dizzy and passed clean out.  
  
They eventually added a girl and another boy to the lineup as Heather called their little family. When their youngest son left home for college, Heather cried blue tears but all it took was a kiss from Cristian to calm her. Then she was happy, a soft glowing pink and he would paint her on that day as he had many, many times before. She was after all still the girl who put the color into his world.  
  
FINIS


End file.
